“They reforge,” she hissed.
Thorne’s voice came through the bond, hard and steady. “You can’t outfight what’s already dead. Draw them toward the sea cliffs. We can use the storm.”
She turned Nyxariel sharply, the dragon diving through smoke and shadow. Behind her, lightning arced crimson through the clouds, and silhouetted against it were more horrors.
The Umbrali drifted through the air like smoke given shape, faces flickering between those of the dead and the living. One wore her mother’s face: another, her own.
Her breath caught. “No.”
They reached for her, hands whispering against the wind. When one touched Nyxariel’s wing, memory vanished, her mind went blank, and her name was gone.
“Thaelyn.” Thorne’s voice slammed through the haze.“Hold on. Don’t let them in.”
Her vision steadied. Nyxariel roared, spinning in place, her tail whipping through the mist. The Umbrali screamed as their forms unraveled, burned apart by dragonfire.
But below, more were coming. A flood of movement churned from the canyon, shadow-beasts and wolves with ribs aglow, the Veilhounds, their jaws dripping black ichor. They raced the wind, their howls vibrating through Thaelyn’s bones. She couldfeelthem scenting her.
“They’re tracking me,” she whispered.
“Because of your Aether,” Thorne replied. “They smell it like blood.”
“Then I’ll give them something to choke on.”
She raised both hands, Aether flaring like lightning through her veins. Nyxariel arched her wings and dove, power spiraling outward. The impact struck the cliffside with the fury of a storm. The nearest hounds disintegrated, their bones turning to vapor, but more poured from the Rift below. Endless. Unstoppable.
And above them all, the sky broke open. The Aethrakyn descended, massive serpents of molten glass, their wings screeching with each beat. Lightning shattered against their hides. They exhaled clouds of acidic mist that melted armor, dragons, and stone.
Vornokh met them head-on, a pillar of black fire engulfing the lead serpent. It shrieked and coiled around him, the two ancient beasts locked in a spiral of destruction.
“Thorne!”
Stay high, stormheart.His voice was ragged but alive.We’ll hold the line. You guard the others.
She wanted to argue, to dive after him, but Nyxariel’s voice thundered in her mind.He fights where the fire belongs. Ours is the storm.
Then something shifted. A presence, cold, immense, familiar, rose through the chaos. The Rift’s power rippled outward, bending the air, making even dragons falter midflight.
Kaen had arrived. His chariot of shadow rose from the torn earth, drawn by giant specters that moved like smoke over water. The black flame around his brow burned brighter than the moons.His armor pulsed with the same red veins that laced the Rift itself. And when he spoke, the world stopped.
“The Veil is undone,” his voice carried, vast and terrible. “The age of dragons is over. Kneel, and live in the new dawn.”
“Never,” Thaelyn hissed.
Nyxariel’s roar answered him, a sound so ancient and pure that the Rift itself quaked. The storm surged back in her favor, Aether lightning spiraling from her wings. For a heartbeat, the light pushed Kaen’s shadow back.
But then he raised the tome of the Rift, its pages bleeding crimson light. The creatures screamed as one, Vraenmaws, Korvathi, Veilhounds, all, and the wind itself obeyed him.
Thaelyn braced as Nyxariel bucked midair, wings thrashing. Across the bond, she felt Thorne’s pain, the burning in his chest, the pulse of their connection flaring too bright to bear.
Stay with me,she whispered.Please.
Always.
The sky shattered. The Rift opened fully, splitting the world into red and black. And beneath the scream of thunder and monsters, Thaelyn understood the truth: This was not the beginning of war. It was the end of everything that had come before.
Chapter
Sixty-Four
